revalent concerning
Greenland its details were not understood until actual exploration
within the last seventy years has at length revealed their meaning. The
genuineness of the Zeno narrative is thus conclusively proved by its
knowledge of Arctic geography, such as could have been obtained only by
a visit to the far North at a time before the Greenland colony had
finally lost touch with its mother country.

[Footnote 288: It was translated into Dutch by the famous
Arctic explorer, William Barentz, whose voyages are so
graphically described in Motley's _United Netherlands_, vol.
iii. pp. 552-576. An English translation was made for Henry
Hudson. A very old Danish version may be found in Rafn's
_Antiquitates Americanae_, pp. 300-318; Danish, Latin, and
English versions in Major's _Voyages of the Venetian Brothers_,
etc., pp. 39-54; and an English version in De Costa's _Sailing
Directions of Henry Hudson_, Albany, 1869, pp. 61-96.]

[Sidenote: The monastery of St. Olaus and its hot spring.]

The visit of the Chevalier Nicolo, therefore, about 1394, has a peculiar
interest as the last distinct glimpse afforded us of the colony founded
by Eric the Red before its melancholy disappearance from history.
Already the West Bygd had ceased to exist. Five and forty years before
that time it had been laid waste and its people massacred by Eskimos,
and trusty Ivar Bardsen, tardily sent with a small force to the rescue,
found nothing left alive but a few cattle and sheep running wild.[289]
Nicolo Zeno, arriving in the East Bygd, found there a monastery
dedicated to St. Olaus, a name which in the narrative has become St.
Thomas. To this monastery came friars from Norway and other countries,
but for the most part from Iceland.[290] It stood "hard by a hill which
vomited fire like Vesuvius and Etna." There was also in the
neighbourhood a spring of hot water which the ingenious friars conducted
in pipes into their monastery and church, thereby keeping themselves
comfortable in the coldest weather. This water, as it came into the
kitchen, was hot enough to boil meats and vegetables. The monks even
made use of it in warming covered gardens or hot-beds in which they
raised sundry fruits and herbs that in milder climates grow out of
doors.[291] "Hither in summertime come many vessels from ... the Cape
above Norway, and from Trondheim, and bring the friars all s